So Jesus never even existed, right?
Show 'em my motto!
Posted on 03/05/2004 1:17:40 PM PST by presidio9
It's an age-old story with a modern twist: Even as the boy is being devoured by a real wolf, he continues to point to one that is, if not imaginary, at least toothless.
To some Jews, indirect anti-Semitism is worse than deadly anti-Semitism. Because it's the former that ineffectual groups like the Anti-Defamation League and the Simon Wiesenthal Center can fight. It's rather like looking indoors for a quarter that was lost outdoors — because the lighting is better.
If some Jews were upset over The Passion of the Christ even before seeing it, it's because we gave the exclusive contract on anti-Semitism to Muslims. But why rob Gibson of the benefit of the doubt we gave Arafat? True, the film depicts an imaginatively unflattering Jewish role in Christ's crucifixion — beyond what the Gospels suggest. So yes, Mel Gibson is his father's son. But any Jew who supported the Oslo Peace Process — and there were more of us than readily admit now — should be keeping a low profile amid The Passion. Unless blowing up Jews is more forgivable than Mel's movie. It's certainly easier to point the finger at the Christian, if you want to keep that finger.
When a movie like The Passion of the Christ comes along, it's the professional Jew-defender's dream come true. Mouthing off about Mel is basically a paid vacation for these types, who even with all the Jewish financial contributions from over the years at their disposal weren't doing their job — not during Crown Heights and not during seven years of genocide bombings in Israel leading up to the second Intifada in 2000, which managed to catch them off-guard. Only then did they kick into gear, as unabashed anti-Semitism exploded throughout the Middle East and resurged in Europe. Only then did it occur to organized Jewry that they forgot to equip a generation or two of college students to fight, much less preempt, the anti-Semitism they would encounter at their left-wing college campuses. Where did all that Jewish money go? To the NAACP, gay rights, injured Palestinian children and Albanian Muslims.
One need only look at Elie Wiesel, the picture of timeless Jewish suffering, to understand the farce that is Jewish outrage today. When three genocide bombs went off in a single week in Israel last year, where was Elie? Elie was in Romania, giving a speech to a village to remind them that 60 years ago "Jews were killed here too." Understandably, Wiesel survived a horrific Holocaust experience, but he devotes his energies to past threats, choosing to remain a universally sympathetic figure rather than a useful one. He and the rest spent the past decade looking for cheap Holocaust analogies everywhere except Israel, where a more literal parallel was in the making. These days, these types seem to come out only when it's safe, like when Jesus is involved. Tragically, the Jewish people reserve greater scorn for the guy wanting to save them from hell than the one trying to send them there.
If Jews spent less time worrying about ancient hatreds and more time worrying about the glaring contemporary ones, we wouldn't have come to a point where the legitimacy of Israel's very existence is regularly questioned and where the Jews get blamed when Muslims bomb America. While Jews worry about things like intermarriage, a sleepy KKK, an Austrian named Haider, a second president named Bush, and now a movie about Christ, the real threats spiral out of control.
Despite building careers on six million dead, the professional defenders have shied away from the harder fights. So along comes Mel to give them some relevance and put them back in business.
And to put media indignation over anti-Semitism back in business. Both Mel and the Jews should feel used. There's a reason the controversy got as big as it did. The liberal media acting like they care whether someone is anti-Semitic or not is not only insulting but insidious as well. The plan is to keep the Passion ruckus they raised in their pocket, for fuel in countering accusations of anti-Semitism the next time they diminish terrorism against Israelis, the next time they misrepresent Israeli raids of terror camps as massacres, and the next time they demonize Israelis for building a wall to stay alive. All they'll have to say is: "We can't be anti-Semites. Just look at the hell we gave Mel!" The very fact that the notoriously anti-Semitic and anti-Israel New York Times took the lead a year ago in condemning Gibson's film and family should be telling.
Networks and newspapers are dutifully up in arms over whether a movie will be offensive to Jews, and they give front-page space to recovered paintings stolen from Jews by Nazis, but whom have they let know that the Palestinian Authority televises sermons with titles like "Blessings to Whomever Saved a Bullet to Stick in a Jew's Head"? Or that Mein Kampf hit No. 6 on the Palestinian bestseller list a few years ago? Or that Palestinians brew terror plots against Americans? By the same token, did any reporters take to task antiwar protesters who held up placards comparing Israelis to Nazis? Only the likes of Pat Robertson's 700 Club exposes what the Jew killers are up to week to week.
The elites and their media are using Mel to wash their hands of the Jewish blood they accumulated when their sympathies enabled the violence to escalate from brick-throwing at Israeli soldiers to the first suicide bombing against Israeli civilians in 1994 — and all the bombings since.
The media of the elites know well that it's not the anti-Semitism that yells "Christ killer" which kills today, but their enlightened anti-Semitism and Islamic anti-Semitism that do. Behold the unholy alliance between the two: The Passion is their opportunity to put a rift in the rival alliance between Christians and Jews. It's a chance to further the Left's war against religion, and the Muslims' war against religion that isn't theirs.
By going after The Passion of the Christ the media are using Jews to attack Christianity, the ultimate target of extermination by the Left and its Islamic friends. (Neatly enough, immediately following the Diane Sawyer interview with Mel Gibson, ABC announced a report that thousands more molestations took place within the Catholic Church than previously estimated.)
The feigned indignation over whether Mel Gibson is calling Jews Christ killers is transparent, not to mention ironic. Jesus was a Jew, so calling someone a "Christ killer" is essentially calling him or her a Jew killer.
And the last time I checked, the secular world doesn't have a problem with those.
Which is why criticism of the movie for not telling enough of the rest of the story is particularly absurd. Walking on water is a neat trick, but Chrians worship Jesus because he died for our sins.
Not so much, but if you have any recommendations, I would certainly be interested.
Genuine Christians will support Israel and love the Jewish people because they believe in G-d, not for anything lovely about us. The others will turn on us. It is inevitable.
You: Why would you bring that type of comment into a religious discussion? I find it hard to believe that a person who would say something like that has a strong relationship with his God.
I was being sarcastic. It was an example of a loaded question, such as "why haven't you explained your other lies yet?"
Three that immediately spring to mind are your assertion that the movie depiction of Jews is not in line with the Gospel.
I believe I agreed with the article at the beginning of this thread that the movie portrays the Jews even worse than the Gospels suggest. That is about the closest I came to saying it is not in line with the Gospels.
You also said that divorce is penalized by excommunication from the Catholic Church. That is completely false.
I have responded to this about three times already to other posters. I was incorrect about that, the Church excommunicates only those who are divorced and remarry. That was a mistake, albeit a minor one. However, the point I was making with that statement, which no one has yet answered, is how can the Catholic Church justify excommunicating people for such a minor sin when Jesus said:
Luk 5:29 And Levi (the traitor) made him a great feast in his own house: and there was a great company of publicans (traitors) and of others that sat down with them.So, how can the Catholic Church justify excommunicating such minor sinners when Jesus said his whole purpose on earth was to minister to traitors and other morally sick individuals. Isn't the Church doing exactly what it loves to call the Pharisees hypocrites for doing?
Luk 5:30 But their scribes and Pharisees murmured against his disciples, saying, Why do ye eat and drink with publicans (traitors) and sinners?
Luk 5:31 And Jesus answering said unto them, They that are whole need not a physician; but they that are sick.
Luk 5:32 I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.
You have claimed on other threads that Barabas was merely a political prisoner, and not a murderer.
The Gospels themselves say he was convicted of an insurrection in which someone was killed. How is that any different from William Wallace (Braveheart)?
If I had to choose an admirable person between Matthew and Barabbas, I would chose Barabbas.
If one believes Jesus is the Messiah, then you can throw away the rest of the Bible because you can change the meaning of words to make them mean anything.
Jesus was not in the royal lineage according to the generally accepted meanings of the words in the Bible.
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An intelligent person would be able to convey that feeling without allegations of "wife-beating."
I believe I agreed with the article at the beginning of this thread that the movie portrays the Jews even worse than the Gospels suggest. That is about the closest I came to saying it is not in line with the Gospels.
Actually, the movie actually tones down the role of the Jews in Jesus's death versus the Biblical account. This has been demonstrated many times, including by myself on this very thread. You cling to your interpretation of anitsemitism, because for you religion is about oppression.
So, how can the Catholic Church justify excommunicating such minor sinners when Jesus said his whole purpose on earth was to minister to traitors and other morally sick individuals. Isn't the Church doing exactly what it loves to call the Pharisees hypocrites for doing?
You are still wrong. The Catholic Church does not excommunicate people who divorce and remarry. Got it? Has John Kerry been excommunicated? Ted Kennedy? No. Excommunication is an extremely rare penalty reserved for those who practice habitual and unrepentant behavior. Serial marriers are not included in that group, because the Church simply refuses to re-marry them, and it does not recognize wedlock outside the church. If a Catholic divorces and remarries, the Church considers him married to his first wife, and living in a state of adultery. But it does not excommunicate him. Now, you have been told. Do not make that mistake again, please.
If I had to choose an admirable person between Matthew and Barabbas, I would chose Barabbas.
This just proves that you do not understand Christ's message. But we already knew that.
Here's the deal: Jesus was not the Messiah. He never existed any more than Dionysus, Adonis or Tammuz. That is why there is no record of anything he said in his native language, Aramaic. That is also why it is impossible to match up the date of his birth with any census that there is any record of.
He was never crucified. That is why the Gospels never say what year it happened. It was not necessary for the Jews to go to the Romans to execute people for religious crimes, as is demonstrated in Acts 7:59, nor would they have done so. Nor was it blasphemy to call oneself the Messiah. Nor was there ever any tradition of letting a prisoner go free on Passover.
The word nazarene (nazoraios) does not mean a person from Nazareth, it means a member of a mystery cult (ha-nazorot). Followers of John the Baptist (another mythical character) were also called nazarenes. The references to Jesus and John the Baptist in Josephus are forgeries.
There is virtually nothing in the Gospels that cannot be found in Greek mythology, Greek philosophy, the Old Testament, the writings of the Pharisees or the writings of Philo.
Christianity began as merely a biblical version of the Hellenistic mystery cults. Cults such as Dionysus used Greek mythology as a starting point. Mithras was a mystery cult that used Zoroastrianism as a starting point. Christianity used the Jewish Bible as a starting point.
It was never a sect of Judaism. Its only connection to Judaism was that it expropriated the (translated) Jewish Bible as if it were its own. The early Christians were not primarily Jews, they were mostly "God fearing gentiles" who had read the translated Jewish Bible.
So Jesus never even existed, right?
Show 'em my motto!
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